Jean Grey/Marvel Girl/The Phoenix Appreciation

[ariwl1]

For Storm you can argue she just didn't have time to deal with the 05, leading the team and the school master position Kitty stepped down from.

The 05 will always be a wrinkle in everyone's sides but at this point it's making the best of a bad situation.

[Narasinha]

We will always disagree on this. I don't think they deserve the respect of being able to make their own choices when them being here and their willful desire to stay is endangering everyone.

Ok... first they don't choose to stay in the present : they wanted to go back but they can't. And even before, when they decided to stay in the present, they always planned to go back to the past. They just wanted to stay long enough to "make things right", which was Beast's plan anyway.(see the pictures I posted).

But, even if they could go back and wanted to stay for their own purpose, who has the right to say anything ?
Endangering what ? Who ?

That's the big hypocrisy : They are all ready to change the future if they don't like it. But they are not ready to change their present to achive that result.
When they change a future, who is to say that people from that future are ok with it ? Does they ask before doing it ? No! They just judge that "it would be better (for who?) if it was different" and they change it.

Well, if that happen to them, in the present, that's too bad. They just get what they are more than willing to do to other.

The thing is that anyone present is someone else past. Don't do to other what you don't want done to you.

It's all a matter of point of view. Readers don't want the present to be changed because that's what they are reading. They don't care if the future is changed because that's not what they are reading. That doesn't have any effect on the morality of characters actions.

There is a book from Isaac Asimov, "The End of Eternity" with similar theme : a civilisation find a way to travel back in time and to "calculate" how to change history to achieve the result they want. Using that technology, they mess with time to achive a kind of utopia on earth. There is no more wars, no more death from natural catastrophes. People have a "good life", are reasonably well cared for. There isn't much conflict. But the result is stagnation. By removing all source of conflicts and by maintaing that kind of status quo, they also removed all inovation, all willingness to take risks, to explore,... and they never left Earth while humanity could have spread over the galaxy.

The point is : Who is going to say which future is best ? Why some people would be allowed to alter history to fit what "they think" would be a better future ? How can you even decide what is a "better future". Except for the extreme case, there will always be negative consequences as well as positive ones. Some people may end-up in a better situation and others in a worse one. Pretending you can take such decisions is pretending you are God. That you are above the rest of humanity.

To come back to the O5 : they didn't asked for it. Beast forced them, using the "mutant genocide" excuse. Kitty told to Rachel (and she didn't disagree) that she fell that their presence already had a good impact on the present. Nobody at the JGS was really against them staying in the present : Wolverine and co ordered them to go back but when confronted and asked if themselve, in the same situation, would do it, they declined to answer. Then the O5 decided, on their own, to go back but they couldn't (not their fault).

As for the "future x-men" prediction... it's very hard to believe in what they say. The first claimed that they wanted to send the O5 to the past because else they would create a bad future. But Baby Xavier and Raze came to the present because they wanted to defeat the real future X-Men and they explicitly said they didn't wanted to modify their own future. Raze told Xavier that they shouldn't do anything to prevent their future to happen. Which is obviously in contradiction with their claim that they want to send the O5 back to the past to prevent their future from happening...

[Omegastorm]

Some of this isn't true at all. I don't want the present changed because if it were their would be no universe. Without Jean healing the Mkraan crystal the universe dies so yes send those boring X-men back and yes even if it's against their will. Beast didn't force them he spoke to them and they chose to go. He didn't drug them. Kitty's repressed grief and feeling better shouldn't trump the safety of a universe. There is no evidence that their presence actually makes things better it just doesn't work.

o

[Narasinha]

Some of this isn't true at all. I don't want the present changed because if it were their would be no universe. Without Jean healing the Mkraan crystal the universe dies so yes send those boring X-men back and yes even if it's against their will. Beast didn't force them he spoke to them and they chose to go. He didn't drug them. Kitty's repressed grief and feeling better shouldn't trump the safety of a universe. There is no evidence that their presence actually makes things better it just doesn't work.

Exactly ! "You don't want the present changed". Each time you read a story of the X-Men going into the future to alter it. Or of the X-Men helping some people coming from a future they are trying to change, you are cheering for the X-Men. Because thats who you are reading about.

But who is to say that it was a good idea ? Who is to say that the future they prevented was less good than the one they created ? Less good or better for who ? Themselves ? Their friends ? The Mutants ? Humanity ? The Universe ? Fact : there is no absolute. Even if its to avoid the total destruction of Earth and all Humanity, who is going to say that it's a good thing for the whole Universe ? Maybe the Universe would be better without Humanity ?

But you, as reader, complain in the case of the O5. The reason is not about right or wrong. It's because you don't want that what you are reading is changed.

Yes, if they don't go back to the past, there is obviously problems. But the Crystal is really not a good example : It was stated explicitly that the Phoenix took Jean has avatar to fix the Crystal an prevent the destuction of the universe. If it couldn't take Jean, it would still have taken someone else.

Beast didn't forced them ???? You can force someone without using a gun or druging him. He told them : if you don't come, all mutants are dead. What choice does that leave ? "Na, we don't care, they can all die. Anyway we already have something planned for this weekend" ?????

[Omegastorm]

Exactly ! "You don't want the present changed". Each time you read a story of the X-Men going into the future to alter it. Or of the X-Men helping some people coming from a future they are trying to change, you are cheering for the X-Men. Because thats who you are reading about.

But who is to say that it was a good idea ? Who is to say that the future they prevented was less good than the one they created ? Less good or better for who ? Themselves ? Their friends ? The Mutants ? Humanity ? The Universe ? Fact : there is no absolute. Even if its to avoid the total destruction of Earth and all Humanity, who is going to say that it's a good thing for the whole Universe ? Maybe the Universe would be better without Humanity ?

But you, as reader, complain in the case of the O5. The reason is not about right or wrong. It's because you don't want that what you are reading is changed.

Yes, if they don't go back to the past, there is obviously problems. But the Crystal is really not a good example : It was stated explicitly that the Phoenix took Jean has avatar to fix the Crystal an prevent the destuction of the universe. If it couldn't take Jean, it would still have taken someone else.

Beast didn't forced them ???? You can force someone without using a gun or druging him. He told them : if you don't come, all mutants are dead. What choice does that leave ? "Na, we don't care, they can all die. Anyway we already have something planned for this weekend" ?????

I am saying there won't be a universe to exist period and I think eternity and a few others would have a problem with that. That's the difference. I am not talking about mutants I am talking about everything. Where was it stated that the Phoenix would have chosen anyone else? It was Jean's special fate, her ultimate evolution and life's purpose. No one else could have done that.

o

[Narasinha]

I am saying there won't be a universe to exist period and I think eternity and a few others would have a problem with that. That's the difference. I am not talking about mutants I am talking about everything.

Why no universe ? o.O Were do you get that from ? Because of Phoenix fixing the Crystal ? I already overed that above : it was explicitly stated that Phoenix needed an avatar to fix the Crystal so he choosed Jean. Do you think it would have left the universe to be destroyed just because Jean was not available ?

[Omegastorm]

Why no universe ? o.O Were do you get that from ? Because of Phoenix fixing the Crystal ? I already overed that above : it was explicitly stated that Phoenix needed an avatar to fix the Crystal so he choosed Jean. Do you think it would have left the universe to be destroyed just because Jean was not available ?

Yes it would have been destroyed if Jean wasn't available. Remember when the Age of Apoc happened and Charles was killed, Jean was never there to fix the crystal, It exapnded and our universe died. There is prior comic precedent.

o

[AJpyro]

Wait, can't the Phoenix just choose a different avatar? I heard that it chose Jean because of an affinity to her but affinity or no, it can choose someone else. Those other Phoenix people in HCT proves that.

Plus wouldn't that just open the world to a Phoenix-less Jean? Less of a chance of her going DP and having a full look at her life outside of that crazy powerup.

[AJpyro]

Yes it would have been destroyed if Jean wasn't available. Remember when the Age of Apoc happened and Charles was killed, Jean was never there to fix the crystal, It exapnded and our universe died. There is prior comic precedent.

o

But Legion said that even if he wasn't there AoX would go on. Doesn't that extend to Jean or basically anyone in the MU?

[Narasinha]

Anyway, putting aside all questions of time travel and consequences, I think the attitude of JGS was just plain wrong :

They could just have discussed the matter with the O5. Exposed their arguments. Maybe organized a little meeting with Cyclops so he could says his side of the story. Then, the O5 may have decided themselves, on their own free will, to go back to the past without any more fuss. After all, that's what they decided anyway, during BotA, before realizing that it was not possible. (And who is to say that it would have been possible earlier ??? It all depend of the author's plot. We don't know why they can't go back to the past).

Instead most of the JGS tried to bully them. They treated the O5 like if they didn't had any right. Like if they were too stupid to make the right decision. They were just soo full of themselve that they considered they were above the O5 and that the O5 should just obey them without question. And that was right after one of them, Beast, lied to them about the reason of wanting them to come to the present in the first place.

[Narasinha]

Yes it would have been destroyed if Jean wasn't available. Remember when the Age of Apoc happened and Charles was killed, Jean was never there to fix the crystal, It exapnded and our universe died. There is prior comic precedent.

Soo....... when the Shi'ar put Jeen on trial, they were really trying to destroy the universe ?

Fact is, there is many theory about time travel. And even future Beast, after spending 30 years+, on it couldn't figure it. Some theory says that you can affect minor events but the bigger the change the more difficult it become. Destroying the universe would be impossible : something would happen to prevent it. Like Phoenix using another avatar.

Fact is, Death told Jean : "D'you think it was an accident that, as a child, your thoughts touched Scott Summer's? Or that he was orphaned by the shi'ar emperor? That fleeting contact eventually drew Scott to Professor Xavier's school for Gifted Youngsters, where he grew into Cyclops, leader of the X-Men. He fell in love with you and you with him. So that, at the proper time and place, when that mad emperor attempted the obliteration of all... you'd be there to stop him."

In Death explaination, nothing is based on chance. All is planned by Phoenix. Whatever happen, there will be "a Jean" (whatever it's our Jean or another human or an alien) at the proper time and place to prevent the universe destruction.

[AbnormallyNormal]

Yeah the question about time travel (into the past I mean: present --> future time travel is relatively uncontroversial and actually exists in the real world) basically boils down to two theories I think:

theory 1) there is only one single "continuity" and any time travel into the past *was already inevitable and everything existing in the present has already taken it into account*. In this theory any "changes" a person attempts to make in the past *already were part of forming their present*. This theory is extremely hard for people to think about or understand because it basically destroys free will.

theory 2) when you time travel into the past you inherently create "new" continuities which branched off "somehow" from your ancestral timeline. There may or may not be methods (within a given fictional metaverse) to travel between various "timelines".

[Narasinha]

into the past I mean: present --> future time travel is relatively uncontroversial and actually exists in the real world

That's what the O5 did : they traveled from their present (our past) to their future (our present)

[Narasinha]

"If you'd like to know, I can tell you that in your universe you move freely in three dimensions that you call space. You move in a straight line in a fourth, which you call time, and stay rooted to one place in a fifth, which is the first fundamental of probability. After that it gets a bit complicated, and there's all sort of stuff going on in dimensions thirteen to twenty-two that you really wouldn't want to know about. All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place." (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

[somacula]

Yes it would have been destroyed if Jean wasn't available. Remember when the Age of Apoc happened and Charles was killed, Jean was never there to fix the crystal, It exapnded and our universe died. There is prior comic precedent.

o

The phoenix can always choose a diferent avatar if jean isn't available, and it can be appropiate avatar, I'm not a big fan of this dude but he didn't seemed half bad when using the phoenix. There can be an appropiate avatar in the past, maybe emma frost, who knows?


I do like jeen (love her ) but people get mad for having the o5 around since they turned team blue and seem to undermine the rest of x men books, quire made some valid points about all of this time travel mess